


Mission to Terra

by CooperCooperGo



Series: Imagine ClintCoulson Prompt Fills [6]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Lovable dumpster fire Clint Barton, M/M, Married to his work Phil Coulson, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 05:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10633170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CooperCooperGo/pseuds/CooperCooperGo
Summary: Commander Phi'l CouL7On is a xenobiologist and captain of an inter-stellar SHIELD Consortium mission to survey the sentient life newly discovered on a small blue-green world in the Virgo Cluster. What he finds on Terra first changes his life, then destroys it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the Imagine Clint/Coulson prompt: Imagine that one of them is an alien xenobiologist who falls in love with a human he is just supposed to be observing.

The Terran's smile was sunny. As warm and as golden as the G-type main sequence star his small blue world orbited. Phi'l found it impossible to control the tendency of his lips to quirk up in response. He'd stopped trying weeks ago.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Phil," the Terran said, strong fingers tracing the rim of his coffee mug, "but you're kinda weird."

Around them the hum and flow of conversation in the busy coffee shop was a soothing, pleasant drone punctuated by the fierce hiss of the big copper coffee machine behind the bar and the clank of cutlery against porcelain. Outside, the weather, still uncontrolled and unpredictable on this less advanced world, spat sleet into crowded streets. The humidity on Terra was higher than Phi'l was accustomed to, the gravity lighter and the temperature was too warm even in late autumn. But here inside the coffee shop the impossibly rich smell of butter and vanilla, of sugar and coffee and the sweet aroma of steamed milk, of woollen coats drying on pegs by the antique oak door, of the dizzying array of scent from Terran skin, all combined into an intoxicating haze that made him forget everything but the fascinating sapient sitting across from him at the small table.

"Am I?" Phi'l hid a twinge of unease behind a sip of coffee. He'd been very careful. But Terra was a new contact, sparsely studied. Central didn't know much about the intricacies of the various cultures of Earth. He'd been thorough in his research—of course, he was thorough in everything he did—but there was always the risk of error.

"Yeah, you are," the Terran's—Clint Barton's—eyes were bright with mischief. Phi'l relaxed a fraction, realizing it was unlikely he was in danger of being exposed. That he was only being teased. Flirting had been a difficult concept at first but it was fast becoming one of his favorite things. Especially when it was directed at him from this Terran man. He struggled to focus on the wordplay, to stop getting lost in the blue-green of the Terran's eyes.

He pried his gaze away, focused on the contents of his cup. "How so?"

"Well, a fancy guy like you, coming in here week after week, to have coffee with a guy like me." 

"Like you? I don't understand."

"Well, I mean, lookit you. All—" Clint Barton made a vague circling wave in his direction. Phi'l frowned, baffled for a micron.

"Ah. You mean my attire." Phi'l looked down ruefully at the perfectly tailored dark suit, the subtly silken waistcoat, the fine dark tie. This level of formality had been one of those errors he could have avoided if he had been more experienced with the culture. Here, in this Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States of America, Terra, he stuck out like a bin!'ti in a yarm'ot patch. Initially he'd chosen the attire because it felt familiar, comfortable, like the SHIELD Consortium uniform he'd spent his whole career in. He wasn't sure he knew how to dress 'casually' anymore. Either here or on his own home-world.

Phi'l's expression must have slipped into something Clint Barton found disconcerting. "Hey, no, I didn't mean it like that. It's…I like it. You look, uh, y'know. Nice. Good."

The warm glow Phi'l felt in his chest at the Terran's words was also unfamiliar. He glanced away, hoping the man didn't recognize how pleased he was at the compliment. He wasn't sure his reaction was proportional. Or…appropriate.

"You, also…look good," he said tentatively, hoping it was the correct thing to say. He looked up. This Terran's emotions were always so close to the surface, his expression so honest, so unguarded. Clint Barton seemed unconvinced but there was a trace of high color on his cheeks as he looked back openly. Phi'l could smell the heat in his face, the blood rising up, so close to the surface of his skin. Warm, alluring.

"Aw," he said, "not really. Everyone says I look like ten miles of bad road." Clint Barton self-consciously picked at the edge of one of the plasters that criss-crossed his forearms.

 _Ten miles of…what? What did that have to do with—?_ But the Terran's pained expression was easy enough to read.

"You _don't_ ," Phi'l said, with maybe just a little too much force. Clint Barton looked up, startled. "…look like…road. You're— "

Phi'l paused, off-balance, feeling his way. His last scholarly paper on intertribal diplomacy among the VosTo'kk of Altair Six had won two Imperiale Awards. His efficiency and ability to communicate within the Consortium was, although it wasn't a word he would have chosen, legendary. He routinely declined speaking engagements that would have funded his retirement twice over, had he been interested in retiring. Why was being honest with this Terran so difficult? He took a breath and went at it from another direction.

"Clint Barton, the first time I saw you, you were _actually_ rescuing a kitten from a tree."

Clint Barton laughed. "Well, you helped—"

"The second time I met you, you had just given a homeless man all of your currency."

"That's why you had to buy me coffee. Maybe that was part of my evil plan."

"—and your coat. And scarf. And it was 0.5C."

Clint Barton shrugged, looked down at the tabletop. "I could get another coat easier than that guy."

"Then there was the time that I happened to observe you jumping out of the third floor window of the Alcot building to apprehend a man who had just stolen a student's backpack, fracturing your foot."

"And you rode with me to the clinic. You didn't hafta do that."

Phi'l paused helplessly, trying to summon the strength to speak clearly. He sat back in his chair. "You're impossible," he finally said.

Clint Barton huffed out a breath. "Believe it or not," he said, "it's not the first time someone told me I'm a pain in the ass."

"No, that's not what I meant. I mean, where I come from, you're _impossible_."

Clint Barton looked up.

Phi'l stumbled on. "You simply…couldn't exist. You could only have come from _here_. I've never met anyone like you in all of the wor—, all of the places I've been. You are a unique construct of this place, this time. And it is so improbable that I would have met you just by random chance that it takes my breath away. I didn't know that someone like you _could_ exist."

Phi'l didn't add that the desire to take his Terran man into his care, to treasure him, to protect him, had been growing over the weeks since their first encounter and was, by now, almost overwhelming.

"I sometimes feel I've been waiting my whole life to have met you," Phi'l finished softly, just now realizing the truth of it.

He realized he had erred, had overstepped convention with his honesty, when he looked up and saw the Terran's shocked expression.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to—I'm sorry if that was too—"

"No, no!" Clint Barton's voice was pained, urgent. "I," he said, "you—" Then he seemed to give up all at once and grabbed Phi'l's hand.

Phi'l gasped. The Terran's basal metabolic rate was much higher than the people of his own world. The shocking warmth of his grasp hit Phi'l's nervous system like the injection of a powerful drug, like a wave of plasma that swept though him, warming every part of him, igniting parts of his body he'd forgotten he even had through long years of nothing but the cold adherence to duty and the vast black emptiness of space.

He struggled, trying to keep his breath under control. Fought the sudden impulse to reach out and take more of him, keep more of this, hold him close, _claim_ him.

"Phil," Clint Barton said, "that's actually the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me." The Terran's expression was wondering, disbelieving. As earnest and open as a youngling's.

Phi'l fought to focus beyond the salient fact of the man's hand on his skin. "It's true," he said. "And it is only right that you should know it is true."

A silence fell. And in that moment, in all of the galaxy, Phi'l was aware of only two things—the buzz and hum of energy of the Terran's hand against his own and the deep amazing colour of his eyes. Then Clint Barton seemed to realize what he was doing and withdrew. He raised his hand to the back of his neck, rubbed at the short hairs of his nape with a grimace.

"Uh, Phil—would you like to get dinner with me?"

Phi'l blinked, trying to regain his composure. "Dinner? We have just eaten breakfast."

Clint Barton's expression showed him that he was missing something.

"No, I mean _dinner_ dinner."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"How 'bout you let me explain it to you tomorrow night, huh? What do you say, 8pm, Anthony's down the street, meet you there?"

"I—"

The hard buzz of the communicator in Phi'l's breast pocket startled him. If the ship was contacting him in what was nominally supposed to be immersive field work it was deadly serious.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I must take this." He retrieved the communicator, disguised to look like a Terran phone, out without meeting Clint Barton's eyes. "Yes?" he snapped in full command voice, only realising he'd forgotten his mild-mannered alias as an insurance adjustor when Clint Barton flinched across the table.

May's tone was clipped, efficient. "Regrets for the interruption, Commander. We've just detected a HYDRA ship in orbit, we need you back up here."

"Understood." Phi'l thumbed off the communicator and slipped it back into his pocket as he rose. "I am sorry to cut our time short." He wondered if just how much he meant that was obvious to the Terran. "I must go."

Clint Barton had overlaid a smile on top of whatever expression he was honestly feeling, obscuring it from Phi'l's easy perception. "Okay,"he said. "But, tomorrow?" His expression turned earnest and hopeful. Phi'l wasn't clear what the significance of consuming a different type of meal was but there clearly was _some_ significance and, besides, he would have done almost anything to smooth that uncertain look from the Terran's face.

"Yes, alright. Tomorrow, 8pm."

Clint Barton's smile was blinding, all golden sunlight and hope. It was beautiful.

And that was the last sight Phi'l' had of him—from the open door of the coffee shop—haloed in soft amber light, the damaged beauty of him sharp and almost painful to look at. The humid, windy cold of an NYC November morning surrounded Phi'l as he walked deliberately back to the beam-up point, his hand still warm and his heart humming in his chest.

 

***

 

 

The HYDRA ship's manoeuvres were baffling. After two full rotations of observation its intentions remained unclear. Phi'l's ship and crew had been on high alert the whole time, and it almost seemed by this point that the enemy's plan was simply to wear them down. If so, it was working.

Phi'l had been staring up at the ceiling of his cabin for the past centron trying unsuccessfully to relax enough for sleep. He gave up, rolled over and swatted the bed-side switch opening the communications system with more force than was necessary.

"Bridge," May said instantly.

"Status," he snapped.

"Nothing's changed, Commander. I would have comm'd you if anything had."

He knew that. Relying on his competency of his crew had become habit over the erns. SHIELD exploratory field analysts trained as both scientists and as warriors. The program to get into first-contact planetary survey was one of the most vigorous in the Consortium. SHIELD ships were known for their long missions, often cut off from communication with Central—as they were now—sometimes for erns at a time. Crews had to be both resourceful and combat ready. There were pirates though all the major transit lanes, and, of course, their old enemy HYDRA. His crew was the best of the best.

Phi'l was aware that his mind was wandering. May's voice came back. "Phi'l, get some sleep, I'll wake you if anything changes." The connection closed.

Phi'l sighed, May was right. He was badly sleep-deprived and the frustrated churn of his thoughts wasn't productive. But he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something, that if he just thought hard enough he could uncover some motivation, some insight into the actions of the HYDRA ship that would lead him to a plan. This feeling fought with the simple expedient of simply wrapping the mission up and departing on the likely assumption that the HYDRA ship would follow.

Phi'l rolled to his back on the bunk, the dark cabin lit only by the faint glow of instrument panels and the star field through the port outside. It was past time he examined his motivations for not giving the order to accelerate their departure. He had known from the beginning that once the mission was over he'd never see his Terran again. It had always been inevitable. Why did he keep putting off the order to go?

He'd discovered the Terran concept of a 'date' by searching the database for 'significance:dinner.' Their agreed-on time had been over a full rotation ago. He had thought…maybe if he could just see him one more time, even if he couldn't say goodbye, it might make it easier to leave.

Phi'l rolled off the bunk with a curse and crossed to his desk. His hand was on the control panel of the holo-display showing the planet-side feed almost as if placed there by some force outside of himself. Using the holo-feed for personal reasons was highly unethical. He felt the violation of protocol in his bones. But he wasn't letting it stop him.

He toggled the display. The glowing blue lines of the 3D holo lit up the the sparse captain’s cabin around him. An NYC neighborhood that had become as familiar to him now as his own dwelling back on homeworld. Maybe even more so, having been off-world on one mission after another for erns at a time. He had never questioned his commitment to the necessary and important work of the SHIELD Consortium. He knew that what he did helped keep peace amongst the habitable systems, helped keep people safe, helped protect diversity without exploitation. He had served selflessly for so long that this impulse to be selfish was…disturbing. Almost as disturbing as it was overwhelming. He narrowed the focus of his search.

A familiar redbrick building glowed blue in simulacrum. A 3D rep of the exterior of the building spun under his hand: front entrance, facade criss-crossed with fire escapes, the normally busy street outside quiet at this hour, the back of the building abutting an alley.

The SHIELD probe in orbit beamed back a readout that scrolled though stats, heat signatures aligning with previously recorded parameters. The large compartmented habitation in Bedford-Stuyvesant held a known quantity of Terrans, their vitals, their identification, their particulars all known to him, neatly catalogued for the survey. There was Terran 382902s in habitation 4C, at rest with his canids. Here wasTerran 382922f, and her offspring 382923b and 382924a, in habitation 7F, registering the baseline metrics of Terrans in slumber. All as it should be.

But his Terran— _when did he start thinking of him as his…he wasn’t his… what the hell is wrong with you_ —wasn’t there.

Phi'l repressed a small spike of worry. By now he knew a little of the habits of his Terran— _dammit!_ —enough to know that he kept odd hours. His daily routine was a mystery to Phil, a seemingly random assemblage of comings and goings, often in response to the needs of others, always on call, ready to serve. It was one of the things that made his Terran so… _stop it_.

Still, it was late in the night-cycle and most Terrans had long since retired for necessary sleep. Phi'l ran the data for the rest of the building. Clint Barton wasn’t there. He expanded his search to encompass the neighborhood. Nothing.

Phi'l chewed on his bottom lip, a habit he’d only lately adopted. It was probably nothing. He flipped off the holo abruptly. He shouldn’t be doing this anyway, it was unethical.

And yet…

He got up and paced. It was nothing. Alright, even if this was unusual, it was still wrong to use the ship's resources to conduct a search for one individual Terran for personal reasons.

He stopped and dragged the desk-chair out with violence, sitting back down and slapping his hand against the toggle of the holo-display. It flared into life, filling the cabin in a pulsing blue. He loaded one very particular data-signature into a tracking routine and began to search.

 

***

 

 

The energy weapon had been a surprise. He'd ducked the first one but the second one had hit him full in the chest. The tranq dart was also a surprise. Clint grasped the dart with clumsy fingers, pulled it out of his neck and held itup in front of eyes that were already starting to lose focus. Some sort of biometrically-keyed heat-seeking tech. Huh. He hadn't thought the Tracksuit Mafia had access to gear like that. The feeling of the neuro-toxin spreading through his system was somewhat familiar, though. It was kinda funny, really, that he knew the symptoms of impending chemical unconsciousness so well. There’d been those couple of months Nat had been experimenting…but much more often it was one dumbass, interchangeable super-villian group after another going after the weak link in the Avengers chain. His mouth filled with a metallic taste. There was gonna be one shit-tastic headache on the other end of this bitch for sure.

There were at least four of them, or eight, or was that his vision doubling? He tried to get his fists up as he spun around, missing his bow like a lost limb. If he could just see straight, he might have a…distracting as the streetlights outside the alley pulsed and sang, growing larger—probably his pupils dilating?—the haze of circular glow like the…no, keep focused, stay on your feet, sight the target, fifty pound draw, you can fight this you can fight, you’ve always fought, you'll always fight, you’ll never give up, don’t let them…

The muscles in Clint’s legs gave out, suddenly refusing to hold his weight. This is bad, he thought as his knees hit the asphalt of the filthy alley, as he listed to one side, then crashed to the ground, his chest and neck in the freezing water of a puddle, his vision restricted to the narrow, linear view of cheap street-knockoff Nike trainers advancing.

The first kick took him by surprise. Mostly because he could still feel it. At least one of them had a baseball bat—he registered the hollow clang of the aluminium against the long bone of his leg in an almost clinical fashion, the snap of bone a distant thunder as the poison in his system turned his muscles to mush, robbed him of his ability to control his body, to fight like he always fought, no matter what the odds, their shouts and curses, crude talk receding, laughter, the passage of time, the gritty feel of his cheek against the pitted pavement, the loud drag of breath into and out of lungs beginning to fill with fluid, the slow feeling of suffocation. He squeezed his eyes shut.

A woman’s red hair filled the darkness behind his eyes—a blur of motion, a bright trail of blood-spatter in the snow, her eyes—green and furious—later, concerned and tender. Another woman, young, dark hair, a haughty face, his own face reflected in expensive mirrored sunglasses. Her long fingers around the grip of a bow, her laughter, shoulder to shoulder, an arrow in flight. Then a man, mysterious, his eyes blue and warm. His ridiculously formal velvety black suit, so dark it sucked the light out of the room. Across the table for coffee—precisely cut hair, receding hairline, the soft rasp of his voice, his kind eyes, a shy touch in passing, a spark of something deep and warm, a quiet shared laugh in the life-affirming clamour of the coffeeshop, golden light, warm wood, the smell of cranberry muffins and acceptance and…

He said goodbye.

 

***

 

 

Phi'l materialized in an alley several blocks from Clint Barton's habitation. The sodden reek of refuse, the dense humidity of the planet-side atmosphere hit him in the gut as the beam flared and faded and the alley was plunged back into darkness.

The dirty chemical light from the lamps on the street barely reached the interior of the narrow passage, piles of refuse blocking the light. Somewhere distant the hum and burr of traffic, more distantly a lone dog barking. He tore his gaze from the tracking display on his wrist and began to search the alley, trying to calm his breathing.

There was a dark, unmoving shape at the edge of the light. Phi'l didn't remember moving but he was suddenly on his knees next to it, struggling to remember his Terran anatomy, desperately groping Clint Barton's neck for the carotid artery. The carnage done to his body was shocking. He couldn't find the artery, couldn't find a pulse and began to panic, his chest constricting, his hands shaking, then—finally—located it at last. The slow uneven beat of the Terran's heart was almost too faint to register against the press of his fingers.

He touched the communicator on his wrist without thinking and ordered an emergency evac from the ship. Then he bent and carefully, so carefully, pulled his Terran into his arms.

 

***

 

 

Phi'l's vision cleared as the flare of light from the transporter faded away to reveal the anxious face of the ship's engineer, Lieutenant Leo Fitz.

“This is a very bad idea,” Fitz said, his hands nervously fluttering over the controls of the transporter.

Phi'l shifted Clint Barton's weight closer, impatient for the decontamination field to release them. The Terran's head lolled against Phi'l's neck and he could feel the hot, wet seep of blood under the hand on Clint Barton's back. The decon scan droned on and on. Phi'l fought not to fidget.

“You don’t know anything about this,” he said grimly. “All you know is that I asked for an emergency beam-out for two. You were just following orders, they can't fault you for that. Go back to your quarters.”

“That’s not wha I mean, sir!I’m not gonna turn you in! I just mean that…”

The decon field released him with a click. Phi'l was off the PaDD with his burden and into the corridor before Fitz could begin reciting the litany of regulations he already knew he breaking just by bringing the Terran aboard. He compartmentalised all of that for later. It was premature to worry about it now anyway, Phi'l's crimes had only just begun.

The half-sprint to the medical bay seemed to take forever. Phi'l placed the Terran on the med-table as gently as he could, powered up the machine and tried desperately to remember his basic medical training from academy. He flipped a couple of switches and the medical bed surged into life, the snap and hum of instrumentation powering up. Phi'l knew all the basic protocols and was hoping he could at least stabilise the Terran before trying to figure out what to do next.

Clint Barton was pale and still, his breath thready and shallow. The dark splatter of blood against his waxen skin was almost black in the blue-white glare of the medical bed's instrumentation as the scan initialised. It physically hurt Phi'l seeing him like this, still and cold, the life and the sunlight drained out of him.

The air above the table lit up with holographic data, a harsh cold blue and orange, glimmering in 3D display. Vital signs, trauma analysis, circulatory, organ and skeletal data.

The injuries the Terran had sustained tonight were…extensive. But there was more. Old wounds, old scars. Bones that had been broken and badly reset, tears in the epidermis healed over with knotted scar tissue. It was all laid out in crisp blue 3D, a litany of trauma inflicted over years, some of it old, so old. His ears were…

Phi'l gripped the edge of the med table, white-knuckled, and tried and failed to calm his breathing, to get a grip on his shock and his outrage. The surge of protectiveness he felt toward the helpless child that had become the man he'd come to…it…

There was a sudden clamour as Lieutenant Simmons skidded around the corner of the med bay. Phil jerked his attention away from the holo-display long enough to launch a death-glare at Fitz, who was right behind her.

"I told you to go back to bed," he snarled. "That was a direct order, Fitz." It was bad enough that he'd had to involve the ship's engineer to transport himself and the Terran onboard. But he'd had hope of containing the contamination to his crew, the ramifications of his law-breaking to the people under his command.

Fitz shrugged and helplessly pointed at Simmons. She slowed down only long enough to elbow Phi'l out of the way, heading straight for the med-bed controls. "Sir, if you'll just—" Technically Simmons wasn't a physician but as the ship's xenobiochemist she was closer to it than Phil was.

"Lieutenant, I can't allow you to—"

"Oh! Oh dear." Simmons went faintly green about the lips. "The table can't repair this kind of damage on auto, I'll need to… sir, if you could just step back out of the way—"

Phi'l helplessly backed up, collided with the edge of the equipment cabinet and closed his eyes, fighting for control. He was off-balance, his vision spinning. He had to—

"Here."

He opened his eyes to see Specialist Johnson holding out a plas-pack of tea. He hesitated only a micron before before abandoning all hope of keeping his dangerous indiscretion a secret. He took the packet and opened it in silence, watching Simmons as she frantically worked the controls of the med-table, making adjustments, injecting this and that, as Fitz hovered behind her. 

"Is that your pet human?" Daisy asked curiously, hip cocked against the cabinet, sipping at her own plas-pack.

"Don't call him that."

"Sorry," she eyed him side-long. "I didn't mean to… it'll be okay, sir."

"It's a good thing you brought him here, Commander," Simmons said. "The trauma is extensive. He wouldn't have survived in the primitive treatment facilities here on Terra. Even now I'll need to keep him under for several cycles to repair the damage."

 _He'll be okay. He'll be okay._ The plas-pack crumpled in his fist. But his breathing came easier now. He nodded, resigned.

"You did the right thing, sir," Daisy said.

"I'll have to report this," May said from doorway. Her tone wasn't at all judgemental. Of course it wasn't, she was only doing her duty. Part of all their jobs was to monitor infractions of the regs that might negatively impact the success of the mission and the welfare of the indigenous people. His actions had destroyed both of these things.Phi'l would have been disappointed if she hadn't spoken up.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Phi'l nodded again and didn't linger on the sad faces of the rest of his crew. His career was over. When he got back to Central he'd be stripped of his rank and his position and possibly prosecuted for the unthinkable violation he done both to SHIELD law and to his sworn oath to protect his ship and his crew.

And yet he couldn't bring himself to regret what he'd done. If there was any possibility that Clint Barton would survive, it would be worth it. Given another chance, he'd do it all again.

 

***

 

 

Three cycles later Phi'l gently laid Clint Barton on the couch in the living room of his apartment in the old brick tenement in Bedford-Stuyvescent. The Terran was still unconscious but would awaken soon. Phi'l did not intend to be there when he did.

"Freeze!"

He closed his eyes. Sighed. Somehow it didn't seem to matter that yet another Terran had seen him out of character, the situation couldn't possibly get worse. He wondered dimly about the senseless order—the ambient temperature within the habitation was well within normal range for a Terran—then dismissed it as irrelevant. Phi'l opened his eyes and filled them with Clint Barton's sleeping face, whole and filled with sunlight once more. He gently touched his Terran's cheek and silently said goodbye. Then he straightened and turned. A slender women with dark hair held an English longbow in an experienced grip, broad-head arrow nocked and pointed at his chest.

"I said don't move, asshole!"

"Technically," Phi'l said, "you said 'freeze.'"

"Who the hell are you and what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm bringing him home," Phi'l said simply.

“He’s been missing for three days!”

“He is no longer missing. He'll be fine.”

“Who ARE you?”

Phi'l didn't see any point in having a discussion. Surely this was Katie, Clint Barton's friend, 'Hawkeye.' He could trust that she would take care of him. It was time for him to go.

Katie Hawkeye turned to track his deliberate movement toward the door, her bow drawn to full extent.

“I said stop! What makes you think I’ll just let you walk out of here without an explanation, mister?”

The polished wood of the longbow creaked as she tightened her draw. Phi'l depressed a setting on his standard-issue field gauntlet. The stun beam shot out and hit her full in the face. The arrow fell from the bow as she collapsed but Phi'l was in motion the instant the beam impacted and he easily crossed the distance to catch her unconscious body before it could contact the floor. He gently placed her in the chair next to the couch. She would regain consciousness in a few microns but by then he'd have transported back to the ship and begun the sequence to leave orbit.

He paused, mercilessly suppressing the impulse to take one last look back his Terran. Then he closed and locked the door and signalled the ship.

 

***

 

 

Former Commander, now merely Agent, Phi'l CouL7On leaned back in his uncomfortable chair and stretched, tying to relieve the crimp in his spine. Stacks of plasti-film covered the whole surface of his second-hand desk, the antiquated reports from a time before the development of holo-storage. It had been determined that the sentient eye, the sentient mind, was a superior method of collating data from the old pre-holo xeno-bio reports, sensingconnections and recognising patterns that even the advanced A.I. of SHIELD Central Compute couldn't do. It was important work, they said. Maybe, Phi'l thought. But it was mostly soul-suckingly tedious. If it wasn't designed as punishment it certainly should have been.

He'd been surprised, really, that they'd let him keep even this.

In the sixteen dectons—ten Terran months, his mind translated automatically—since his ignominious return to Central he'd powered though so many stacks worth of old data that he'd lost track. The compulsive need to work himself to exhaustion day after day to block out his memories drove him. His colleagues—those that still came around, an increasingly short list—assumed he was trying to forget the disgrace he'd endured for his actions on Terra. No one knew what he was really trying to forget—the sunny, open smile of one very specific Terran man.

Phi'l supposed the only compensation of all this effort—aside from enabling him to fall into a numb sleep every now and then, sometimes at his desk—was that he'd completed the groundwork for a new unified theory of the spread of sentient life throughout the galaxy. His next scholarly publication would doubtless fund yet another retirement that he didn't want.

He slid aside the unsteady stack of plasti-film that covered the desk's data port and punched a couple of keys to bring up the letter of resignation he'd put the finishing touches on this morning. He'd submit it today at the end of his shift. SHIELD had been all he'd ever aspired to, all he'd ever known, but this wasn't…he wasn't…he had to find some way to move on. There was no shortage of public sector volunteer work he could attach his name to, rededicate his life to. This cramped little office buried in the depths of Central data-storage wasn't it. He couldn't pretend any longer that working himself to numbness was going to erase his memory of a pair of blue-green eyes as vibrant and alive as the world he'd never see again, barred from interstellar travel, restricted to the near-space of Central.

He'd take his savings and buy himself his own little ship. A private individual couldn't afford faster-than-light tech but it'd get him around the Central worlds. Maybe if he put enough distance between himself and his old life he could outrun the pain in his chest whenever he thought of Clint Barton.

There was a polite rapping on the frame of his open door. It was ridiculous level of formality for the basement office, one step above a supply closet, that he currently inhabited.

"Hey, Phi'l, got a minute?"

Phi'l repressed the urge to laugh. "Sure," he said.

Commander Hill, one of his few remaining friends, stepped into the tiny office. Behind her was a Nova Corp Denarian.

Phi'l sighed. "What now?"

"Agent CouL7On, I am here to formally notify you that we've had new developments regarding your case," the Denarian said.

"I wasn't aware that there was a case," Phi'l said. "I pled guilty because I am guilty. Central Authority's motion to mitigate the sentence was denied because I didn't show penitence for what I'd done and that is because I don't regret what I did. So how can there be new developments in the case?"

Hill rolled her eyes. "Phi'l, give him a chance."

The Denarian stiffly continued. "In light of…inquiries from…certain parties…new evidence has been called to our attention." 

"New evidence, what new evidence?"

The Denarian stepped aside to let a tall, sandy blonde-haired man enter.

"Hi," Clint Barton said. He waved tentatively.

Phi'l stopped breathing.

"Phil?"

"Oh, this is very good," Hill said, "I don't actually think I've ever seen him speechless before."

"Phil, are you okay?"

"How…?" The word came out in a broken rasp.

"Oh, well, I called in a favour from a friend. He, uh, he helped me find you."

"Who could…?" Phi'l was aware that he was whispering. He couldn't seem to speak any louder.

"Oh, just, you know, someone I know from work."

Phil shook his head, looked imploringly at Hill.

"Thor, Prince of Asgard," she said flatly.

Phi'l's mouth slowly opened. Hung there.

"Phil, are you okay?" Clint Barton looked concerned, all blue eyes and rough tousled hair and scruffy chin and all at once Phi'l was back in the coffee shop, his Terran smiling at him shyly over a mug of coffee, sharing a joke. The last ten months fell away as if they'd never been.

"I'm sorry, just give me a micron." Phi'l tried to catch his breath. "How do you…?"

"So, well, see, we're both Avengers, Thor and me, sometimes, so…"

"You're an Avenger," Phi'l said dubiously.

"Er, yeah."

"What's an 'Avenger?'" Hill asked.

"Terran vigilante group," the Denarian said, _sotto voce_.

"Ah."

Phi'l threw up his hands. "You said you worked in a hardware store!"

"Oh well at first I couldn't figure out why a fancy guy like you would want to talk to me so I thought maybe you recognised me and were one of those creepy groupies so I kinda told you 'hardware store' and then it seemed awkward to admit, like, later, that—"

Phi'l waved a hand. "Stop, stop. _You're_ an Avenger..?"

"Yep, 'Hawkeye' right here." Clint Barton pointed at his chest. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt with a stylised purple arrow on it.

"Hawk…guy?"

"No, 'eye.' Eye, eye!" Clint Barton pointed at his eye, mumbled, "Why do people keep getting that wrong…?"

"Clint, we actually talked about the Avengers once. In the context of the Battle of New York. You said that Kate Bishop was Hawkeye."

She is! It's, ah, complicated. Also she is hella pissed at you, just saying."

"What—?"

"If I may," the Denarian said, "after certain inquiries were escalated we found evidence that the people who assaulted Clinton Barton, Terran, were actually backed by agents of HYDRA. A blast signature found at the site matched HYDRA energy weapons, so there are grounds to reconsider your case. If it can be proved that you were merely attempting to rectify contamination previously inflicted by HYDRA's intervention, there is a good chance your actions would be exonerated and you could be reinstated in your command."

"It's not right they punished you for saving my life, Phil," Clint Barton said. "When we found out what happened…I came to make it right. I came to make it right and I came because I…"

It was as if Clint had simply run out of words. Everything stopped. They stared at one another.

"Clint…you're _here_." Phi'l said softly, aware that his voice was a bit broken. In his old life he would have been embarrassed about it. Not now. In his old life he would have wanted all the crazy details of how the Terran had found him. Right now none of that mattered.

"Okay, well, you two catch up, I know you will," Hill said, briskly pushing the Denarian out the door in front of her. "Phi'l, you know where we'll be," she said as she palmed the door shut.

Phi'l nodded absently. He couldn't seem to take his eyes off the Terran, _his_ Terran. Couldn't seem to get his mind to focus beyond the impossible fact that he was here.

"So, uh, you're kinda late—"

Phi'l cleared his throat. "I'm late?"

"Yeah, for Anthony's. We were gonna get dinner, remember?" Clint Barton took a hesitant step towards him. Stopped and nervously rubbed his palms on his jeans.

 _God, Phi'l had missed him._ "I remember. I also looked up what _dinner_ dinner means."

"Oh. So…"

"So?"

"So do you still want to? I mean, I get that it's maybe weird because it's been, I dunno, almost a year since we've seen each other—sorry about that, it took us a while to figure out you were an alien— but anyway that you might not… or, I mean if there's someone, or…"

Somehow the space between them had closed though Phi'l didn't remember walking forward. He was suddenly close enough to feel the heat from his Terran's skin, close enough that the warm exhale of his breath brushed his cheek. His scent surrounded him, filled his head with sunlight. He was so close it was the most natural thing in the galaxy to reach out and pull Clint into his arms.

Clint wrapped his arms around him. The rough scratch of the stubble on his chin felt good against Phi'l's cheek. There was a deep indrawn breath and the brush of lips at his temple, an unwinding of tight muscle in Clint's back. "I missed you," his Terran mumbled into his hair. "I missed you so much, Phil. Did you…did you miss me?"

"I missed you," Phi'l said, his face in Clint's neck, his eyes squeezed shut. "But—"

The Terran tensed abruptly. "If you—"

"No, I just meant, we're a long way from Anthony's."

"Oh, well…" Clint pulled back. Phi'l opened his eyes to his blinding smile. "So what have they got like pasta here?"

Phi'l thought for a micron. Or tried to. It was difficult to concentrate with Clint's arms around him. He felt his own smile expand in his chest, using muscles he had thought he'd never need again. It filled him up—was bigger than galaxies, bigger than the distance from here to Terra. "It doesn't matter," he said, "as long as I can share it with you."

 


End file.
